Deep Silver

Last updated

Deep Silver
Company type Division
Industry Video games
FoundedNovember 2002;21 years ago (2002-11)
Headquarters
Höfen
,
Austria
Area served
Worldwide
ProductsSee List of Deep Silver games
Parent Plaion
Subsidiaries
Website deepsilver.com

Deep Silver is an Austrian video game publisher and a division of Plaion. [1]

Contents

History

Deep Silver was announced in November 2002, with their first release to be Anarchy Online: The Notum Wars . [2] According to Craig McNichol, who ran Koch Media's England branch, the idea behind Deep Silver was to have a business segment that would develop games that would complement the games Koch Media was distributing on behalf of other publishers. [3] McNichol also stated that Deep Silver's name was subject to much internal discussion. [3] Koch Media invested €500,000 in Deep Silver in July 2003, and in November 2003, all of Koch Media's game publishing operations (excluding distribution) were reallocated to Deep Silver. [4] [5] The division had been continuously active since, primarily in Europe. [1] In April 2008, Koch Media opened Deep Silver, Inc., a subsidiary branch based in Los Angeles, under Deep Silver's name. [6] In August 2007, Games That Matter, a studio founded by former Rockstar Vienna employees in 2006, was acquired by Koch Media and became part of Deep Silver under the name Deep Silver Vienna. [7] Co-founders Niki Laber and Hannes Seifert had left the studio by January 2010, at which point Deep Silver Vienna was shut down. [8] [9] Deep Silver Vienna has only produced one game, Cursed Mountain , which was developed in association with Sproing Interactive and released in August 2009 for the Wii. [10]

Deep Silver first gained widespread attention with their release of Dead Island and their acquisition of Volition. [1] Dead Island had been their first release to reach the top spot on sales charts in September 2011, [11] and they acquired Volition in January 2013, alongside the rights to the Metro series, from the bankruptcy proceedings of THQ. [12] Deep Silver also acquired a minority interest in Berlin-based free-to-play game developer Infernum Productions in December 2012. [13] In February 2013, Deep Silver announced its intentions to expand into the mobile games market. [14]

In December 2013, Fishlabs, which had filed for self-administration the previous October, was acquired by Koch Media and became Deep Silver's dedicated mobile game studio. [15] As the agreement was an asset deal, the legal entity of the studio was dissolved and Fishlabs was reorganised as a division, officially known as Deep Silver Fishlabs. [15] [16] In July 2014, Deep Silver acquired the rights to Homefront and its in-development sequel, Homefront: The Revolution , from German developer Crytek. [17] Dambuster Studios (officially, Deep Silver Dambuster Studios) was established to continue the development of The Revolution, succeeding Crytek UK. [17] Later on the same day, Crytek announced that Crytek UK would be closed, and all of its staff transferred to Dambuster Studios. [18] In August 2018, Koch Media acquired the rights to the TimeSplitters games, which would be overseen by Deep Silver. [19]

In May 2020, Koch Media and THQ Nordic, by this time both part of Embracer Group, exchanged several intellectual property rights: Deep Silver received Red Faction and Painkiller , while handing off Risen , Rush for Berlin , Sacred , Second Sight , and Singles: Flirt Up Your Life . [20]

In May 2021, Deep Silver and Koch Media, part of Embracer Group since 2018, announced that Free Radical Design had been re-founded. Work on a new part of the TimeSplitters series is to begin before the end of 2021. [21] In November 2022, Volition was transferred to Gearbox Entertainment, another company under Embracer Group. In December 2023, Free Radical Design was closed down amidst a widescale company restructuring from Embracer Group. [22]

Controversy

In January 2013, Deep Silver announced a special edition of their then-upcoming game Dead Island: Riptide , titled Zombie Bait Edition, which would include a statuette of a mutilated female torso in Europe and Australia. [23] After strong criticism over the item, Deep Silver initially offered an apology, stating that they were "deeply sorry" and promising consumers that something like that would not happen again. [24] However, when the game was released in April that year, the bust was still included, generating further backlash. [24]

In January 2019, Deep Silver partnered with Epic Games on a one-year exclusivity deal for the personal computer (PC) version of their upcoming game Metro Exodus on Epic's digital distribution storefront, the Epic Games Store. [25] Through this deal, Metro Exodus was removed from Steam, another digital distribution storefront, where Deep Silver had been selling pre-orders for the game since August 2018. [26] Additionally, the deal was made and announced less than three weeks prior to game's release, causing criticism and confusion among critics and fans of the Metro franchise. [25] Valve, the company behind Steam, labelled the move as unfair to consumers, while fans review-bombed previous entries of the series on Steam. [26] [27]

Games

Franchises published by Deep Silver include Metro from 4A Games and Volition's Saints Row , both of which were acquired through THQ's bankruptcy auction in 2013, as well as Techland-created Dead Island . Other games include Homefront: The Revolution by Dambuster Studios, Shenmue III by Ys Net, and Payday 3 by Starbreeze Studios

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Handrahan, Matthew (4 February 2013). "Koch Media: "We are not ambitious to be the next THQ"". GamesIndustry.biz . Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  2. ↑ Steininger, Stefan (12 November 2002). "Koch Media etabliert neues Label für Games". beta.gamesmarkt.de. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  3. 1 2 McNichol, Craig (5 August 2014). "Twenty years of Koch Media". MCV/Develop . Archived from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  4. ↑ "Koch Media investiert 500.000 Euro in Deep Silver". beta.gamesmarkt.de. Archived from the original on 15 February 2019. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  5. ↑ "Koch Media konzentriert Spielepublishing auf Deep Silver". beta.gamesmarkt.de. Archived from the original on 15 February 2019. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  6. ↑ "Koch Media expands into US". MCV/Develop . 30 April 2008. Archived from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  7. ↑ Martin, Matt (22 August 2007). "Koch acquires Games That Matter". GamesIndustry.biz . Archived from the original on 14 February 2019. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
  8. ↑ Brice, Kath (1 February 2010). "Koch closes Deep Silver Vienna studio". GamesIndustry.biz . Archived from the original on 13 February 2019. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
  9. ↑ "Koch Media schließt Deep Silver Vienna". beta.gamesmarkt.de. Archived from the original on 15 February 2019. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  10. ↑ Alexander, Leigh (1 February 2010). "Deep Silver Closes Vienna Studio". Gamasutra . Archived from the original on 10 December 2017. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
  11. ↑ "Deep Silver Dead pleased with first No.1". MCV/Develop . 15 September 2011. Archived from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  12. ↑ Goldfarb, Andrew (23 January 2013). "THQ Dissolved, Saints Row, Company of Heroes Devs Acquired". IGN . Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  13. ↑ Handrahan, Matthew (18 December 2012). "Koch Media invests in F2P dev Infernum Productions". GamesIndustry.biz . Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  14. ↑ Weber, Rachel (26 February 2013). "Deep Silver planning move into mobile". GamesIndustry.biz . Archived from the original on 2 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  15. 1 2 Corriea, Alexa Ray (2 December 2013). "Galaxy on Fire developer Fishlabs purchased by Koch Media". Polygon . Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  16. ↑ Chapple, Craig (14 May 2014). "'It was the hardest time we've ever gone through': How Fishlabs came back from the brink". MCV/Develop . Archived from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  17. 1 2 Sarkar, Samit (30 July 2014). "Deep Silver buys Homefront from Crytek, moves Homefront: The Revolution to new studio". Polygon . Archived from the original on 9 December 2018. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  18. ↑ Sarkar, Samit (30 July 2014). "Homefront: The Revolution devs to move to Deep Silver as Crytek scales back two studios". Polygon . Archived from the original on 19 August 2018. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  19. ↑ Dransfield, Ian (15 August 2018). "Timesplitters license acquired by Koch Media". MCV/Develop . Archived from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  20. ↑ Wood, Austin (5 May 2020). "Red Faction, Painkiller, Risen and more get closer to home in THQ Nordic and Koch Media IP trade". GamesRadar+ . Retrieved 15 May 2020.
  21. ↑ Makuch, Eddie (20 May 2021). "New TimeSplitters Game Coming From Original Developers". GameSpot .
  22. ↑ Phillips, Tom. "TimeSplitters studio Free Radical Design closed today, staff say". Eurogamer. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
  23. ↑ Corriea, Alexa Ray (23 April 2013). "Dead Island: Riptide edition with severed torso statue still available in Europe, Australia". Polygon . Archived from the original on 2 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  24. 1 2 Parfitt, Ben (23 April 2013). "So Deep Silver went ahead and shipped the Dead Island Riptide Zombie Bait Edition regardless". MCV/Develop . Archived from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
  25. 1 2 Williams, Mike (29 January 2019). "Metro Exodus' Sudden Switch to Epic Really is Unfair". USgamer . Archived from the original on 7 February 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
  26. 1 2 Orland, Kyle (28 January 2019). "Epic Games Store snags Metro Exodus away from Steam [Updated]". Ars Technica . Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
  27. ↑ Chalk, Andy (30 January 2019). "Players protest Epic's Metro Exodus exclusive by review-bombing the series on Steam". PC Gamer . Archived from the original on 5 February 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
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